Fur.

[BadlyDrawnSimpsonsCharacter]

"Inspired" by the culling of mink on fur farm in Denmark - AIBU to wonder why on earth, in this day and age, people are still purchasing fur?

There are enough videos and photos from fur farms that show how fur is acquired. I will not go into this as it is very, very disturbing.

If you are a fur wearer, can I ask why you choose to wear it, considering the torture the animal has no doubt endured to provide the fur?

For clarity I am not a PETA member/animal rights activist looking for an argument (although I do have strong views on animal cruelty, like the majority of people do).

I am genuinely interested in other people's views on this.

But there's clear evidence that the demand for 'vegan' food fads such as avocado and cashews have a devastating impact on the areas they're grown.

Because omnivores notoriously don't eat these food 😂

We 'use' animals in so many different unkind ways that I can't see wearing or buying fur as especially immoral.

Fur doesn't involve much more torture than meat production.

In fur production, the animal is stunned via a probe up it's arsehole, then slit down its front and the skin tore off. It's then thrown in a heap to die. In meat production, larger animals are stunned via a probe to the temple and their throats slit, hung up and left to die. Unless your meat is kosher, then it isn't stunned. Often the stun guns/ probes break and the process is not stopped, they just slit the throats without the stunning.

You could argue that fur is MORE humane as almost all fur farms do their own slaughter on site, no long journeys in awful livestock lorries with no food or water. Meat is almost never slaughtered on site.

Flipsockflop

agree with the people saying how is it different to goose, duck and down feathers in lining of coats or duvets or pillows.

There is a huge problem with goose down being torn by hand from the breasts of living geese. The geese then re-grow the down and then have to go through this torture again.

This is most prevalent in China, but can occur in Europe as well. Reputable manufacturers have been trying to source their goose down wholly as a by-product of the meat industry (ie. from birds killed for their meat). However, because of the way down is collected from multiple small farms across parts of Europe, it is difficult to be 100% sure it is all cruelty free.

Recently, largely because of this, we decided to ditch duvets when our (synthetic, and horribly un-breathable) one needed renewing and go back to blankets.

China, sadly, does stand out as a country with a record of horrific animal cruelty, and it is not racist to say so, as one PP unaccountably thinks - it is simply an observable fact. It is no surprise that this is the destination of most of the pelts from European fur farms, but it seems hypocritical for countries to criticise China's attitude to animals whilst feeding its appetite for animal products.

It may be that Chinese attitudes are beginning to change, though, as there is a widespread movement to ban dog meat markets and Shenzhen has recently outlawed the eating of cats and dogs on the grounds that it is incompatible with civilised life.

Source below says that euthanising fur-animals with gas is standard, not stun than skin while alive as implied in previous. The challenge is using gas for long enough that the mink die. Similar info for foxes that are fur-farmed.

newseu.cgtn.com/news/2020-11-06/How-do-you-kill-17m-mink-sick-with-a-COVID-19-mutation--Vb9hjGXbwI/index.html

fureurope.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Good-practice-foxes-15042013.pdf

JoeBidenIsGreat

Interesting info. The first article mentions that gassing mink is problematic as being semi-aquatic they can hold their breath for a long time (and therefore presumably tolerate relatively low pO2 and higher pCO2)

The article section on electrocution of foxes is grotesque.

Hopefully COVID will lead to the demise of fur farms in the EU countries which still have them.

Looks better on the animal. I don’t own one and wouldn’t buy one.
I think very old fashioned too, so doesn’t appeal at all.